Vanamonde

Three parts to Kerbin orbit.

I have had this problem, but at least when it happened to me, it was not altitude that was the problem but how far I was from any other ship. It would arise between 200 and 450m of another vessel. If ANY other ship was within that distance I could switch to driver, vehicle, or other vehicle, but if I was farther than that, I was stuck. If I drove back within that distance, it would start working properly again. Are you sure altitude is causing it in your case?

The Mk96 Docking Trainer will allow you to practice the final stage of docking without needing to make 2 separate launches and fly a rendezvous first. The launch vehicle can deliver the orbiters to an orbital altitude of around 120,000m. Either add crew to the upper orbiter in the VAB before launch, or transfer a pilot to the upper orbiter at this point. Once both orbiters are crewed, you can undock them and practice manuevering and bringing the ships together. The orbiters are larger than they need to be simply to maneuver in orbit, but the bulk of the fuel tanks is there to make the ships handle in a manageable way. Even so, it will be a good idea to switch to fine control with the caps lock key before bringing the ships together for a docking. Although not necessary, it can be useful to right-click on the other orbiter's docking port and set it as target. The orbiters are provided with lights so that docking in Kerbin's shadow is not a problem. The two orbiters are independent ships, and may be de-orbited separately or together. Craft file: OBSOLETE

Airplanes are actually harder to build than rockets, and new players often have trouble making them. Since you can't figure out how to fly if you can't get off the ground, here are a couple of planes I made that are easy to fly and stable in the air. The first one is the T-6d Mentor 2 two seat trainer. I've made this plane intentionally sluggish so that it is less likely to get out of control in the hands of a newbie pilot, but even so, apply course changes gently. But best of all for a learning pilot/aeronautical engineer, it will takeoff by itself if you just engage SAS mode with the T key, throttle up with the left-shift key, and start the engines with the spacebar. Mentor craft file: obsolete My other offering is the F-5f Francisca. It is much more manueverable than the Mentor, and to be honest, is quite temperamental with the new SAS system, but a steady hand on the stick can keep it under control. The good news is, though, that if it gets out of control, simply take your hands off the controls and the balance of the plane will automatically recover from most tumbles and spins. It is a very fun plane for buzzing the tower, but my favorite thing to do with it is to hug the crests and valleys of the mountains to the west of KSC, where the Francisca's motto is, "If you can't see your shadow, you're too high." Both planes are equipped with ladders for crew access, and landing lights for night operations. Versions of the F-5 have been downloaded over 500 times. Francisca craft file: obsolete

Oh, sorry. I am reconstructing threads lost in the forum implosion, so some of the screenshots may be of slightly earlier versions of the ship. I thought I had matched that pic up, but you're not crazy, it may be of a slightly earlier version of the design. However, it's a good idea to throttle back slightly so as not to lose any extra fuel fighting air resistence low in the atmosphere, so you lose nothing by throttling back slightly for the additional reason of preventing Mainsail overheats.

Don't forget that while your ships appear to be not moving much relative to each other, they are both moving in a circle around the planet while in orbit. Consider the following spectacular bit of MS Paint art. Although they are actually not rotating in alignment, the ships are rotating around each other in position, and may no longer be pointing at each other's docking ports by the time you get there. I would recommend closing the last 500m a little faster, say at 20m/s, and then come to a stop at around 50m and be prepared to do some final adjusting with RCS.

Have you been going in and out of warp with SAS mode engaged? Sometimes the ASAS comes out of warp still trying like hell to make some adjustment it was making just as you went into warp. Try leaving the ship and going back to KSC for a moment, and then resume the flight.

I completely gave up on spaceplanes 27 times. But the 28th time worked. (I'm afraid to try a 29th time.)

I am feeling very petulant because I lost about 1,080 posts. I mean, I know it's an abstract number. But it was an abstract number that I liked. Well, I guess I'd better get to yammering if I want to build it back up again.

When you get to the altitude where a jet engine doesn't have enough air and stops working, not all of the jets will shut down at the same time, throwing the ship around with unbalanced thrust. Is it possible this is what is happening with your ship? Try shutting down the jets in a controlled way, with an action group, before they fail haphazardly.

How quickly are you approaching the other ship for the actual dock? Within a kilometer you should be able to just steer straight towards it, but if you are going VERY slowly, then time and orbital mechanics will draw the ships apart. Try closing the final distance at 20m/s+. That shouldn't be too fast to brake to a stop again when you get there.

Try setting your solar panels to an action group in the VAB. That should get around the right-clicking problem.

Indeed. As you can see in this pair of reversed-angle images, the lights are parked just to the side of the runway.

Since night time is really dark now, I made the V-9c self-deploying light fixture. It turns this: Into this: And adds to the scenic beauty of your KSC. Another good use for the V-9c is to indicate the position of the runway for planes that are too far away to see the runway itself. The V-9c starts on the runway, and you can drive it where you want it to be from there. You can park it with the parking brake and move it again later, or if you are certain you won't want to move it again, you can eject the roadgear and leave it as a permanent fixture. The V-9c is powered by a small nuclear generator, and will never run out of power. Craft file: OBSOLETE

Upload your screenshots to a service like Imgur.com (it's free), and include the link they provide in your posts.

I'm very glad my ship was helpful to you. Its design is stable on landing because I was a very bad pilot when I was first learning the game, and I *HAD* to figure out how to keep the danged things from flipping over when I violently bashed them into some poor, unsuspecting moon. 　 Incidentally, it doesn't take any more fuel to land on one side of the moon than the other. Keeping your fuel use within acceptable limits is just a matter of practice.

Imgur.com is free, and very easy to use. Upload your screenshots there, and use the link they provide in your post.

I deal with that problem by placing some reinforcement across the joint, like this. It is possible to attach the struts directly from one tank to another without a spacer part like the small hardpoints I used in that example, but it's kind of hard to put them where you want them, and a real pain in the butt to try to pick them up again if you decide to alter the design.

I also suspect that problem is traction. A heavier vehicle and/or wider layout helps press the wheels against the surface. However, an additional complication is that whatever control part you have is currently oriented to consider straight up to be "forward" as far as the controls are concerned. This is going to make steering and control whonky.

You can, however, place some struts across the lower meet point to create quite a strong link.

Folks should check out Katateochi's videos. They are highly entertaining, and the crafts are insane.

Start sending small probes to planets to see how interplanetary flight works. Once you think you've got a handle on it, send manned missions.

I made an example orbit rocket and walkthrough for new players, here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25008-How-to-reach-orbit-and-a-rocket-that-can-do-it-a-walkthrough-for-newbies

Just a pic that I think looks cool. Kerbin on the horizon of Mun, zoomed view from a rover window.

Updated once again, to the G model, for 21.1. Some new features. Craft file: *** OBSOLETE! *** For the new version, go to this thread. And since there seems to be a demand for it, I've decided to add a written walkthrough of moon flight. Yes, there are many video tutorials, but some people learn better from a written form, so here goes. First, I will show how to reach Mun, and then I will show that a small adjustment to that technique will allow you to reach Minmus. To keep things simple, I will not use manuever nodes in this explanation, and I will be assuming you already know how to establish Kerbin orbit. (If you do not, see my other ship/tutorial combo: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25008-How-to-reach-orbit-and-a-rocket-that-can-do-it-a-walkthrough-for-newbies.) From the pad, set throttle to full and ignite the engines. The ship is balanced so that it will stay pretty close to optimal ascent speed, and you do not need to adjust the throttle again until you are establishing orbit. The first set of boosters will run out and should be ejected, then begin your gravity turn at 10-13,000m, and while your exact orbital height is not critical, for complex reasons, lower is better. Let's use 80,000 for this example. On the way to orbit, the second set of boosters will run out and should be ejected. This main stage should have enough fuel to circularize a stable orbit, and begin the transit burn. Now you are ready to depart for Mun. But how to reach it? Many new players make the mistake of aiming straight for Mun and burning the engine, but this neglects to take into account that Kerbin's gravity will draw the ship away from a straight line, so the following picture shows what happens if you try that. (Mun is at the top in this picture.) In fact, *every* movement in this game will be a curve, because you are always being affected by the gravity of one body or another, so you need to learn how to make the curves work for you. If you look at that last picture, you will find that the greatest distance that burn was achieving was exactly on the opposite side of the planet from the burn point, so if the ship wants to do that anyway, let it do so instead of fighting it. Begin this burn when you are 180 degrees around Kerbin from the direction you really want to travel. However, if you aim for where Mun is right now while using this 180 correction, you will miss again, as illustrated in the picture below. That's because it takes about 6 hours to reach Mun's height, and Mun will have been moving along its orbit in the meantime. I won't take the time to go into the math, but it turns out that in order guide your ship to where Mun *will* be, you need to aim about 60 degrees ahead of its current position, like this. (In this picture, you can see that I've adjusted things so that Mun is about 60 degrees to the right, over by the 2 o'clock position.) I like to line this up as the opposite side from Mun plus 60 degrees, but it happens to work out that if you look ahead and begin the burn as soon as Mun rises above Kerbin's horizon, the angles will be just about the same, so many players like to do it that way. At any rate, when the time is right, make sure your nose is pointed at the prograde marker and fire the engine at full throttle. The orange tank stage will run out of fuel during this burn, so be ready to eject it and immediately fire the transit stage. On map view, watch your apoapsis marker rise until you see this set of symbols appear. The blue circle that says "Mun encounter" when you float the mouse over it indicates the place where you will leave Kerbin's influence and enter Mun's influence, so when you see that maker, turn the engines off, because you are going to Mun today! (Don't worry about the other lines and markers for now. The gold curve indicates the path you will take through Mun's SOI and the purple path shows what your orbit would look like on the other side of the Mun encounter, if you did nothing during the encounter.) You should now coast with the engines off and enjoy the scenery for a while, and/or fast forward to the good part. Once you enter Mun's sphere of influence, the map view will change to this display. Notice that on this path, you will fly past Mun and be thrown out into Kerbin orbit again. Even though you are now under the affect of Mun's gravity, the speed it took to raise your ship to this altitude is too fast to orbit the Mun, and now that you've arrived, you will need to slow down again to establish Mun orbit. For complex reasons we need not go into right now, the most fuel-efficient time to make this slowing manuever is when you reach Mun-periapsis, so wait until that moment, turn your nose toward the retrograde marker, and fire the engine once more. Watch on map view as your projected path line curves down toward Mun, then wraps around it in a closed curve orbit, but keep the engine running until your new periapsis is at the altitude you want to orbit Mun. The lower this orbit is, the less fuel you will use on landing, but also, the lower this orbit is, the faster things will happen and the harder it will be to fly a landing. Since you are new to this, let's take things easy and set the orbit to 20,000m, like this. While you will be in a stable elliptical orbit at this point, your altitude will be constantly changing as you move around the ellipse. You can go straight to a landing from an eccentric orbit like this, but it will be easier to do if you circularize the orbit first, so wait until you reach that periapsis, point retrograde once more, and burn until the orbit is circular. It does not need to be an exact circle, though, and if you get the periapsis and apoapsis within a few kilometers of each other, that will be close enough. You are now in a stable orbit at an altitude from which you can see the Munar terrain. You can stay in this orbit as long as you like, enjoying the scenery, because Mun really is one of the more interesting worlds in the game. But as you circle Mun, keep an eye out for a piece of ground that looks pretty flat, and is pretty low (not hills), because those are the easier places to land. In this example you will be circling pretty close to Mun's equator, and while it is possible to land much farther north or south of that, for right now, let's keep things simple and try a landing near that equator. It is also possible to land at night, but that's difficult even for experienced pilots, so don't try that just yet. When you have picked out a likely landing spot on the day side and are ready to try a landing, save the game with F5, and if the landing attempt doesn't go well, load the game with F9. Some players may feel this is cheating, but landing is one of the harder aspects of this game, and while you are learning and practicing it, quickloads will avoid having to fly a whole new ship from Kerbin every time something goes wrong. Anyway, about 1/3rd of an orbit ahead of your chosen landing spot, quicksave, then extend the landing gear. (Note: there is an occasional glitch that causes extended landing legs to fall off of a ship when you load a save, so be sure to save the game first, THEN extend the landing legs.) Then point your nose retrograde and fire the engine, watching on map view as the line of your projected path curves down to intersect the surface, like this: The most efficient thing to do from this point would be to wait until the last second, burn the engines as hard as possible, and shed all speed just before touching the surface. However, that's just about impossible to do without crashing, so let's not try that. Instead, let's shed half our speed at half our altitude. So at first you will be going around 500m/s at 20,000, so let's slow to 250m/s at 10,000m, then to 125m/s at 5,000m. There is nothing special or precise about these numbers; I intend them to only be a rough guide. However, you will notice that as you slow, the line of your projected path will curve down, and you won't be aimed at your intended landing spot anymore. To correct for that, when performing your deceleration burns, aim the nose of your ship a bit above the retrograde marker, like this: This will be applying part of the engine's thrust to upward motion, slowing your descent rate, and keeping your intended landing point from wandering very far. This is hard to do precisely, but hopefully it will prevent you from accidentally landing in a bad spot. At some point during this descent, the transit stage of my example rocket should run out of fuel, but if it does not, eject it shortly before landing anyway, so that the lander stage will be free to come down on the landing legs. Now comes the tricky part. Although you have an altitude meter on the game's main screen, it reads your height above some abstract "sea level," and the ground below your current location may be much higher than that. This is part of the reason you picked a landing spot on the daylit side of Mun; so you can see how close you are to the ground. This will be easier if you have gone to the game's graphics settings screen and turned on "terrain scatter," because that option places random rocks on the surface of Mun which you can watch as you descend. Another useful thing is to switch momentarily to IVA view, because there is a "radar altimeter" dial on the control console which reads your height above the current ground level, but unfortunately, it only works within the last 3,000m. What I like to do is check that meter, go back to main view, and subtract that radar reading from the main altimeter to get an estimate of my real height above the ground. (Example: if the radar reads 1,500m but the main meter says 2,100m, you will touch Mun's local surface when the main meter reads 600m.) It's time to both shed the last of your lateral speed so that you do not go rolling across the landscape, and to reduce your vertical speed to a rate that will not damage the lander. To do both of those things at once, point your nose directly at the retrograde marker and fire the engine, full thrust at first, and then adjusting throttle up and down as needed. It turns out that if you *keep* pointing at the retrograde marker, it will seem to slide underneath you so that you are coming down almost straight onto it. Many players like to turn on the ship's RCS thrusters to help achieve this alignment, while I and many other players prefer to keep continually steering with the main engine. Also to simplify this part of the flight, I always turn my ship and camera so that the navball is lined up with my main camera view. This way, right and left on the navball are also right and left on the screen, up on the navball is forward, and down on the navball is backward. This is an arbitrary choice that works for me, and I will use it in this tutorial, but you may find another method that works for you. But however you do it, when you see the ground getting close, you should be coming straight down at a descent rate of 10m/s or less, as indicated by this meter. I've tried to make this ship damage resistent and crashed it into the surface at 15m/s without harming it, but the slower you can go, the better off you will be. Just before touchdown, if you turn the RCS on and hit the H key, there are several thrusters on the bottom of this lander that will help with last-minute braking. By the way, another reason to land in daylight is that your shadow provides an excellent visual indication of your height above the ground. During this landing you will be continually steering toward the retrograde marker, watching how close the terrain is, making steering adjustments, watching the descent rate meter, and throttling up and down to keep this descent speed in the safe zone. This can be *extremely* tricky to do, so don't feel bad if you crash. And even if you do it right, bad luck can still bring you down on a slope or bump and you'll watch with horror as your ship flips over and explodes. (This is the reason the lander I have made has such a wide shape and landing leg arrangement; it is more stable this way and less likely to tumble.) I myself crashed continuously for 4 straight days when I was learning how to land on Mun, but if you're patient, keep loading saves, and keep trying, you will figure it out, and there is nothing to compare with the feeling of landing your ship intact on an alien world for the first time. Trust me, it will be worth the frustration. Once landed, there are lots fun things you can do. Extend the two ladders with action group 1, and have the guys get out and walk around, jump around, fly around on their RCS packs, and so on. To aid in your explorations, the lander I have made is provided with floodlights for night EVAs, and opposite the ladder you will find meters with which to measure the surface gravity and temperature of Mun. (Okay, so the game's thermometers don't really work yet, but you can pretend, okay?) When your highly trained astronauts have concluded their scientific inquiries (they're done jumping), it's time to bring the ship and crew home. (As before, it is advisable to quicksave while you are learning this phase of the mission.) It is always more efficient to take off to the east (as you learned in my orbital tutorial), but that is trickier to do on this launch, because you are not on a level launch pad, and may have landed at any old angle on Mun's terrain. When you are ready to take off, find east on the navball, throttle up the engine, and turn toward that eastern heading. The ship may heave around a bit and that can be disorienting, so steer by the navball, not by eye, and you should be okay. Now, back when you launched from Kerbin, you had to go straight up to get out of the atmosphere, so that it would not slow you down and waste your fuel. However, Mun does not have an atmosphere, so you can skip that step and start accelerating to the east for orbit right away. All you have to do is aim your nose up a bit to achieve a mimimum altitude of around 5000m so that you don't hit any hills, and you can go straight into orbit right then and there. Going higher doesn't hurt, though, so you might as well give yourself a bit of a safety margin in case of mistakes and misfortunes. In this example, let's aim for an altitude of 10,000m. There's a bit of a trick to leaving Mun. If you chose the wrong direction, Mun might just scoop you up again, or you might find yourself zipping past Kerbin too far or too fast to get home. What you want to do is leave Mun going the opposite direction from the moon so that it can't grab you again, and shedding as much of its orbital speed as you can so that you fall more directly to Kerbin, but not heading so directly at Kerbin that you can't slow down in time. It turns out that the most advantageous angle for this departure is about 30 degrees inward from Mun's orbit, but how do you find that angle? Since Mun rotates on its axis at the same rate that it moves around Kerbin, the map view line of its orbital path always enters and exits the surface of the moon at the exact same spots, and this makes for a handy marker you can use. Zoom out until you see the white line of Mun's orbit, and when your ship is 30 degrees back from that point, once more aim your nose prograde and burn. Watch the line of your projected path rise and lengthen until it shows an exit of Mun's SOI. Then once more fast forward and/or enjoy the view as your ship coasts for a while. Once you exit Mun's influence, you will see that your ship is moving on an ellipse that gets somewhat closer to the planet, but doesn't get very close and still rises back up to Mun's height. You are going too fast to get close to the planet, so point your nose retrograde and fire the engine, as always, watching map view as your path gets close to Kerbin. You have a choice at this point. A) You may go straight for a splashdown. If you burn until your periapsis is within 69,000m, you will pass through Kerbin's atmosphere, and this "aerobraking" will slow your ship through friction with the air. The effect is tiny at high altitudes and it would require many passes to slow to a landing, but if you set your periapsis to 31,000 or less, the aerobraking effect will be so strong that the ship will not emerge from the atmosphere at all. But passing through the atmosphere even a little bit will *eventually* slow your ship until it falls to a landing. (Note: currently, the map display does not take aerobraking into effect, so this ship on the path in the picture above WILL go straight to a splashdown, even though the map view shows a path continuing back into space.) However, in this version of my moon rocket design, I have given you enough fuel to pause at Kerbin orbit, if you wish. In that case, you would want to set your Kerbin periapsis above the atmosphere (70,000m+), and perform an orbital insertion brake once there. (Note: Landing at higher lattitudes on Mun requires more fuel, and may not allow for a Kerbin orbit upon return. If so, just use the direct-to-aerobrake return path from Mun, since the ship should have enough fuel for that.) At some point during the return leg of the journey, the outer 4 fuel tanks will be exhausted and should be ejected. The remaining core of the ship can use any remaining RCS fuel as emergency propulsion. The advantage to pausing at Kerbin orbit on the way home is that you can practice trying to bring the ship down at a specific location. This is another thing that is difficult even for experienced pilots, though, because, as I noted, the map does not show the effects of aerobraking. So if you want to practice this, it would be a good idea to once more quicksave before attempting the landing. The capsule will most likely be safe coming down even over mountains, but it is safer to aim for low plains or the sea. But when you are ready to try, point retrograde and fire the engine once more, being sure to aim some distance past your target landing spot to allow for aerobraking. (This is me, missing KSC by a big margin. ) Of course, when you are ready to land, you should eject the lander stage of the ship and ride the rest of the way on the capsule alone, since the capsule will fall more slowly and safely without this mass that it no longer needs. The parachute knows the proper altitudes at which to open, so that it is never too early in the descent to activate it. You may try to fine-tune your landing location by opening the chute earlier or later. However, it can be *too late* to open the chute, so I advise opening it at 3500m or higher, which should be good even over Kerbin's highest mountains. (Thrill seekers: over water you can activate the chute as low as 300m and it will still open in time. Probably.) At any rate, once the ship has landed on water or ground, you have completed your first full and successful Mun mission. You can "end flight" the capsule to celebrate and go on to greater exploits. Or just go to Mun again. It's a pretty cool place. Just about any ship that can reach Mun can also reach Minmus. Use the same method outlined above to burn for a Minmus transit. However, there's a complication. Minmus is in an inclined orbit, meaning that it bobs first above and then below Kerbin's equator, as you can see from this zoomed out map view. Sometimes Minmus will be close enough to the equator that you get an intercept anyway, but if your Minmus transit burn goes all the way to the orbital altitude of Minmus, but the intercept symbols have not appeared, stop the burn at that point and pan the camera around to see if your path is going to pass north or south of Minmus' orbit. If you are going to pass north of the moon (as I am in the following example pictures), wait until you are halfway there, point the nose of your ship due south and burn the engine (if you are going to pass north, burn south), watching to see if this brings your path up to a Minmus intercept. (It might not. Minmus is tricky.) In this example, my ship would pass to the north of Minmus if I did not make a correction burn. But after a correction burn, you can see that an intercept has been achieved. The actual landing on Minmus is essentially the same as landing on Mun, though be careful! Minmus is so much smaller and its gravity is so much weaker that you can easily over-power manuevers and send the rocket zipping around like a meteor. Be patient and take things slowly, with burns at low throttle. One big advantage of landing on Minmus, though, is that its frozen seas are perfectly flat and exactly at sea level, so that the main altimeter will give you a proper height above ground reading. Return from Minmus also requires the same method as returning from Mun, though you may end up approaching Kerbin at an incline. This is harmless. In closing, this is the fourth version/improvement of my moon rocket designs, which have been extensively tested not only by myself, but through more than 3100 player downloads. I hope the ship and this walkthrough are helpful. ADDENDUM: The G model has a flight abort system which should allow the crew to return home alive despite a launch mishap. Should something go wrong during the ascent to orbit, hit the abort button to shut down the main engines and launch the lander as its own vessel. Once the lander is safely away from the rest of the ship, hit action group 0 to eject the lander stages and free the capsule. Disclaimer: Nitpickers! Don't even start! I KNOW this isn't an efficient ship, and I KNOW these methods are not the most efficient. My ONLY priorities are that the ship be reliable and easy to fly, not run out of fuel while a newbie fumbles around a bit, and that the instructions be clear and sound.